troublmaker
Warlord
Same reason you would want to play with rampant barbarians. It might stop you from mass expanding... but it also stops Russia from mass expanding.
+5% technology cost for each new city
- Thread starter mrwho
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Zezima
Warlord
I think the concept was reasonable for many of the reasons posted above (nerfing AI expansionists and ICS strats), but I also agree that 5% per city is too large, even for standard size. Duel and Tiny? Okay, but I'd make it 3% for Small-Large and/or 2% for Large-Huge.
you guys obviously don't realize it makes Immortal/Emperor so much easier against AI 
I mean, cmon, the AI gets a happiness bonus of 60+ or so, so they make 20+ cities. If not for the 5% extra cost they'd be getting rockets while you are still making cannons.
I mean, cmon, the AI gets a happiness bonus of 60+ or so, so they make 20+ cities. If not for the 5% extra cost they'd be getting rockets while you are still making cannons.
Map size shouldn't factor in since tech costs scale by map size already. The 5% therefore won't translate into the same beaker costs if you play on smaller maps.
Actually, map size has huge effect on tech cost by city. On huge terra 20 cities is not really much, looking at land coverage. Base tech cost has nothing to do with that. With 5% increase, in best scenario, your 21st and further cities slow you down, regardless of base tech cost. As we are shown, real dragging effect appears sooner, as new cities are hardly mature ones. If city multiplier is equal for each map size, then huge and tiny are further from each other by another dimension.
The 21st city doesn't drag anything down, as long as it's not too underdevelopped compared to the rest. But yeah real dragging is way sooner.
If I'm reading that right its 5% of the base cost (and the base cost scales by map) and the 5% is not cumulative, which is what I suspected and is what I alluded to in my response above.
So it really only discourages founding crappy marginal cities. Any decent sized city should give you back the 5% in science and more (it will also be adding gold into the treasury) if care is taken to develop those cities.
So it really only discourages founding crappy marginal cities. Any decent sized city should give you back the 5% in science and more (it will also be adding gold into the treasury) if care is taken to develop those cities.
But you also have to keep in mind that each new city needs a lot of turns and buildings to break even. During that time, it decreases your "effective" science rate.
Especially later in the game. Each city without at least a public school and ~10-15 pop will definately slow down your tech speed.
Imo, 5% is a bit much and should be lowered.
Depends upon exactly how many cities you already have and what percentage of your science is coming from your worst science city. (Must be at least 5% just to pay for itself)
If you already have 20 cities, it's a guaranty that at least one of your cities won't be pulling its own weight. (In actual practice, considerably less than 20 since your capital will have National College and should also have a few Academies.)
The AI though was given a science handicap, which does indicate that the low science flavor AIs aren't building even a library in all their cities.
Interesting replies. One of the problems for me is the period between setting up a city and it producing more than 5% of your science. Especially if you have a strong capital this can take quite a while and can feel like it holds you back too much in the early game when tech progress is probably the most important. It will pay off in the long term if you don't mass expand, but the short-term losses more or less out of your immediate control (unlike global happiness or maintenance in civ 4 you could prepare for) just seem like a bad way of encouraging expansion. I'm all for restricting ICS but I don't like how it's done.
Another problem is that it can pretty much force you to either raze or annex cities. Puppets simply don't grow enough or get enough science buildings and specialists to be sufficient. In a recent game the fourth and fifth city I acquired were both puppets and many turns into the game they still produced less than 5% of science. I feel like this is just another way of restricting conquest. Although I'm not a fan of conquest and rarely go to war, I still don't think it's a good idea to punish one particular playstyle so much.
Another problem is that it can pretty much force you to either raze or annex cities. Puppets simply don't grow enough or get enough science buildings and specialists to be sufficient. In a recent game the fourth and fifth city I acquired were both puppets and many turns into the game they still produced less than 5% of science. I feel like this is just another way of restricting conquest. Although I'm not a fan of conquest and rarely go to war, I still don't think it's a good idea to punish one particular playstyle so much.
With Social Policies , wonders, and an army of workers to improve lands, it will be incredibly fast to grow that next city you plop down. Nothing like the settling/growth of first 1-3 cities when you're building up your empire.
You can also speed it up by directing a trade route.
That's why the only limiting factor is going to be terrain. But most of the time, your growth is also coming from capturing ready made cities. So it's even less of an issue outside of the revolt turns waiting for it to be productive. If the arithmetic was such that it doesn't pay to get more and more cities, my wide games would have been unplayable, not me cranking out 2+k beakers with 5 turns research on a Large map (standard speed)
Large map only has 3% penalty, as far as I know. That's a significant difference (almost 50%).
And yes, trade routes speed things up quite a bit but it still takes a bunch of turns to get basic infrastructure going and building all the science stuff. Sure, you can also dump thousands of gold into a new city but is that really worth it?
And if you focus entirely on science, the city will slow down social policies.
Opportunity costs are just a bit too high at the moment.
Ninakoru
A deity on Emperor
I find this new mechanic works quite well. Counters masive science from city spammers, runnaways, and puppet empires. I find weird nothing were included on liberty to diminish the science loss per city, while on the culture side is pretty well handled. Like 1 point of science per connected city on the finisher or something like that.
Is it 3%? I have to check, but if it is, which makes sense due to more cities, then it;s even less of an issue.
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Yes. I play huge maps and it is 3% rather than 5%. It makes sense. If every civ only had a hand full of cities, there would be a crap-ton of open, barb-spawning space.
NukeAJS
King
- Joined
- Jul 28, 2008
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I think it's a great addition.
Before, there was simply no reason to not want as many cities as your happiness could support. Now, founding/capturing a city causes a technology dip until you can get the appropriate buildings in place.
Still, going wide is still the best for science. The 5% increase is just a temporary set-back. Once food and science buildings go up, the city will contribute more than it's -5% penalty.
Before, there was simply no reason to not want as many cities as your happiness could support. Now, founding/capturing a city causes a technology dip until you can get the appropriate buildings in place.
Still, going wide is still the best for science. The 5% increase is just a temporary set-back. Once food and science buildings go up, the city will contribute more than it's -5% penalty.
Vidszhite
Ya Girl Juniper & Friends
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- Jun 21, 2012
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- 370
The science penalty does scale down for larger maps. It IS 2% on Large/Huge iirc.
And if those cities are ill-gotten, the amount of science you're denying the others is great enough to keep you in the lead.
